Caged Beast
by LadyArilou
Summary: The elements are against me, even the one below my feet, and the beast inside wishes to string them by their necks. Running is all I can do to keep myself from getting eaten, and being followed during the chase is neither a blessing nor a curse. But I'm not like them; I refuse to become the terrorizing beast the world fears like a wave of evil. That man-beast can never have me...
1. One

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I take a deep breath, taking in and filling myself with the dusty scent of my home. It would be the last I see of it; I can feel it below my heart and deep into the bone marrow of my spine. I never ignore that feeling. Before, if I had not left when I was told, then I would have found myself pulverized and as dead as the ashes of my old home. I fear for the fabric of my jacket as my knuckles are whiter than a piece of paper, gripping at the fine edges that have worn from the beating of the elements.

When I finally take the courage to grab the door knob, I see black spots and my fingers tingle. The numbness shakes through me and stiffens me like a board of wood. Already, they are here. I should have left when I could. I jerk my hand back and released the steaming brass handle before landing on my backside. Tremors shake through me in odd intervals that send the tips of my hair to stand at attention and I am paralyzed for far too long. They know I am here, they have felt me, I have fallen in their trap and the glass of my bedroom window shatters from down the hall. But I refuse to fight back.

Instead, I force my stiff body to stand. My lungs lurch and I feel a ball of bile sting and push up my throat, but I shove it down with a hard swallow. The wave of nausea brings a spell of dizziness and I barely comprehend the hands that grab for me. But I don't miss the bolt of light springing behind my back with a loud howl in my ear. "Back off! He's mine!" I do not recognize the voice nor do I want to find myself to stay and find out, so I go for the window next to me and break my way through.

I do not want to know of the man responsible for the hell storm of a hurricane outside of my home, but I hear the fighting behind me along with the crash of the few objects I had earned to own. No one would hear or see the commotion; the second hand on my clock had long since stopped and it signaled my urgency to flee. Beams of searing lights roar through the roof of my home and flames lick at the foot of my door, and I could only imagine the damage from inside. A thick mote surrounds my property and the gusting storm pushes the force against me. But I still refuse to fight back; I refuse to become one of them.

Even if the same fate flows thickly through my veins, I absolutely refuse to become a monster with the sole purpose to destroy like they already have.

"It's easier to give in. Over the years, you run knowing you are never really hidden." I do not want to know of who is speaking above me, neither does the wind as it burns the retinas of my eyes. "But when we encounter like this, you still run."

A fat chill drips down my spine like the drops of water falling and washing over my faded form in the center of the chaos. I know exactly what they want. But, again, I refuse.

"I refuse!" I shout.

Against the push, I force myself to take small steps forward and feel the gust cut my jeans and slice through my skin. Warm blood whips around in the mess and wraps itself around my calf, solidifying and showing its anger through a menacing glow. I have no control over what my body does or wants, or what it feels is right against situations like this, so I run to prevent myself from doing the irrational. I run to prevent my transformation.

"Please." I beg to myself, gripping at my arms. "Please, don't."

_Kill! Kill! Kill! _It chants endlessly, completely clouding over my own thoughts.

Gashes set free the thick essence of me and I gasp at the tiny hands of cells gripping at my skin, begging for my permission to completely overtake. No, I do not want this. A roar with a chorus of earth rumbling grows provoke the transformation and my heart lunges to be free of its restraints. The restraints I have set to avoid losing myself. I have lost any and all sanity once, and I refuse to have to find it again. The blood seeps and oozes its way from my body through the suggested openings I know they are purposely inflicting to make me go mad. I do not want to be mad like the rest of them. I do not want to stop the minutes from ticking, I do not want to be able to overshadow the sun or burn my fingertips, I do not want to cause storms able to tear down structures or cause tsunamis, nor do I want to get into a person's head. I don't want it.

"No!"

The tiny hands retract like they were on springs, tied to my soul, and are sucked back into me. I sigh through my nose and collapse onto my bruised knees.

_One day_, it coos into my ears from the inside.

"Never!"

"Always and forever! You cannot take it away!" The voice from above roars with a beat of a drum thunder and the lights blind me. "I will have you and you will give me power!"

A roar to the side of my ear has a jump jerking through my bones and through the haze of the exhaustion, and rough hands claw into my shoulder. I felt the urge to flee pound against my heart. "I told you, he is mine!"

They were delusional by their own wrath and I was already too late to run, surely they would chase after me. And with their practiced abilities, I have no chance of a fast escape. I should have left when I could. Damn me for my bastard fears and my inability to fully understand what the phrase '_run for your life' _means to my safety_. _If I had a head against them, then I could already be across the city. Whether it is in the shadows or underground, I needed leverage on hiding. If they can't see me, the scent would back track them by a mile or so and I needed that. But here I was, on the verge of losing myself so easily in front of the very bodies of power wanting me for unspeakable reasons.

I do not want to be taken in the ways they speak of, whatever they are. I wanted nothing more than to be free and not have worries over if I am able to live to see the next sunrise.

I am nothing but an object of power as I am grabbed by a multitude of sized hands. Some searing with heat or drenched with salty mists, and I am tugged and pulled at. This was a deadly game of tug of war and being in the middle could conclude with my limbs being torn from me. I did not know if they really care on keeping me whole, but I preferred to still be able to count all ten fingers and toes along with four limbs and a head atop my shoulders.

A tug to my left, "Take your hands off of him!"

"Back off, mutt!" I was yanked to the right and my face smacked against something solid.

I hated this. It burned the resistance—what little of it I had left— like the thin ties I was using to hold the beast inside of me down. I jerked and could feel the fire scorch through my boiling blood. It wanted out and my refusal only fueled its rage against these monsters that wanted to use it for their own greedy uses. Why couldn't it understand the only reason I am like this is because it would only benefit in aiding in their evil deeds? The sleeve of my jacket was torn from the rest of me and long stripes of my flesh were tossed with it. That allowed my hungry blood to wrap and encase itself around my arm to protect me, but I willed with every last wit in me to force it back into its proper vessel.

"You're wasting him!"

I sucked in a breath as the pressure of bodies pressing against me suddenly releases; I am finally able to breathe. But without care, I find myself on my bloody knees and my hands barely catching the weight of my shoulders. Dirt under me infected my wounds, but that wasn't the problem. Or the blessing I have received. There is no dirt like this, squishy under my fingers. The monsters were gone, my home was gone, and I was nowhere near the city. But I was deep in the shadows of a damp forest. Blood spills from the corners of my mouth and I stain the grass under me. A gash from their greedy claws sputters and convulses on my stomach, and I think to rest. I would not be able to continue like this anyway.

What harm is there to sleep for a little while?

The harm was dreaming. Dreaming was a bad sign and left me uncomfortable in my pile of soft, bloody grass with sweat rolling across my healing wounds. My shoulder bucked and hit me in the ear as I dreamt of a hot tongue with sharp incisors ravishing my neck, not leaving a single inch untouched. Those large hands grabbing me and positioning my limbs in ways I could not fight against. It bent my back in endorphin arches and my muscles twisted and knotted against my stomach.

This dream I have been ashamed of since the beginning of this endless chase, and it tells _he_ is close. He is the reason why I am here and he is expecting a payment when I wake up, but he sticks to haunting my subconscious until I decide to open my eyes again. Maybe never, or maybe at least until my body is clean again. I will open my eyes again after the cuts and gashes stop bleeding, I cannot wait until they have healed completely. If I wait any longer then I will come face to face with the pack of beasts again. And I will owe him more than I already do.

But the voice that whispers to me. I cannot hear what he is saying, but I can feel the trembling bass shake through my whimpers and he pushes the quivering sounds from me. It brings him satisfaction to know that he can reduce me to such a state; a weak mess under his broad body and craving for more.

The dream stops and I spring upwards.

The scrunch of my stomach reopens the wounds but the pain cannot and never will compare to the shame that weighs me down. I scramble to grab hold of something to keep me steady in the world of reality and I find purchase on the thick bark of a tree. The whimpers shake through my throat and my trembling fingers claw into the surface and chip pieces away. I was terrified; he could be watching me now. He is enjoying seeing what he is capable of doing to me and his eyes shoot shudders through me.

I do not smell, see or hear him. But I feel he is there, somewhere.

I have already wasted more than enough time recovering from my nightmare and I pick myself up on quivering legs and my tattered clothes do nothing against the brutal wind. This is the punishment I serve for not listening to the feeling before that chaos could ensue itself, and here I was. Crawling through a dense jungle I did not know about but he knows where I am going as he could jump from in front of me and behind. I think I feel him just an inch behind my back and when I turn my head to look, the feeling dissipates. He is playing with me, and I hate it.

No wealth, no ruin to anything, no silver nor gold will ever satisfy him unless I give him the payment he wants. It could range from killing someone to giving me to him, and he expects it soon as soft whispers ghost into my ear.

I stop in my tracks and stiffen when I hear the first howl of the night signaling predators would soon emerge looking for an easy kill—such as me. The sun had met the horizon too soon and I needed to find some place high for me to hideout until the morning. For me to climb the tallest tree, I would need to release my slowly bleeding abdomen. This time, I cannot will the blood back into place. It hurts too much and my eyes are drooping too much.

The thought of the chore of climbing to safety puts a weight on my shoulders and I slump against the tree, my chest heaving with my labored breaths. Twin howls sound from the near distance and I feel I am running out of time before they find my weak, bleeding form against a tree. But there was nothing I could do instead of just collapsing into warm arms and feeling a short gust of reality shift under my feet.

My legs were pushed to rest against my chest as my back tenses over the feel of muscles pressed against it, and the sound of breathing flutters against my hair. I was about to speak but my lips are sealed shut when I hear the rustling of leaves and low growling below me. He brought us to the highest branch in the tree I collapsed on and he had me in his lap with his large hand covering mine, directly above my stomach. Applying pressure, I gasped as I felt something foreign invade my wound and seep into the fine stitching. He was using his own power to speed up my healing.

I threw my head back onto his shoulder as he forced himself to alter my cells into a thin patch of bruised tissue, and I bit at my lip to slowly let the whimper die in my throat.

"Sssh, love… It's okay just sleep…"


	2. My Wants Against Your Needs

Chapter 2: My Wants Against Your Needs

Keeping on my toes, I was wary of anything I stepped on as I did not want to alert my follower or chasers. I woke up alone, as expected, but all of my wounds had disappeared. That was worse than before and it just deepened my dept with him, and he made sure to remind me with the occasional rustle of branches or a growl from above. When I felt him too close, I had the chance to catch the slightest of glimpses and saw him in different clothing, maybe the colors of a coat. I saw no need for a coat, it was the dead middle of the summer and the temperatures felt to be ranging in the eighties and I shook my head. Maybe he was mad, or simply could not retain enough body heat to last him through the day.

That was wrong; I remember falling asleep against a warm body with warm arms holding me, and warm hands massaging my tender wounds. Thinking about it, I felt the prickling feeling of my neck burning from my chin to my ears and almost choked on my saliva just reminiscing about that embarrassing night. Never again, I promised myself. Never again will I allow him to get close to me like that. He is nothing but an animal, a monster just like the rest of them only in it for the power. Already he had gotten closer than the others, and I was ruefully ashamed of that.

I was on the run and I made it clear to myself that I was not going to trust anybody, I was not going to allow anyone near me or see me more than the small peasant boy. But that did not work out as well as I first met him when a fire-breather caught me walking the streets (I was stupid, of course walking the streets—for me—is not normal), and he aided my escape by pointing out a hole in the brick wall I was pinned against. God forbid I ever meet that fire-breather again; he was a nag only interested in, and I quote, _'Giving it to me badly.'_

No, never again.

For my own mental sake, I was going to blame the blush on the flush of the heat of the summer day and I trudged on. I had a slight clue on where I was going, depending on the fact that the sun sets in the west and rises with the east and the city I was recently in was south of the way I was heading. So north I went, hoping to reach civilization soon. My stomach was completely empty, roaring with need and a dry patch at the back of my throat would not moisten as my saliva was uncomfortably thick. Breathing became uncomfortable as evening approached and my vision blurred along the edges; I was becoming very weak.

And the troubles did not stop there; the weather lessened into a chilling cold. It was unreasonable; it was warm and sunny no less than a half an hour ago and already I was shaking in my boots. Too soon the sun fell and the atmosphere stilled like my heart. I was expecting a howl or something to tell me of any local animals, but it was silence beside my heavy breathing and the crunching of the dirt under my feet. The chilling breezes abused my tender skin until it was a raw pink hue and I gnawed at my lip to help subside the chattering of my jaw.

I was at the base of a valley by now, I was following a river.

Water, water everywhere.  
Not a drop to drink.

But suspicions bubbled in my chest and sprung like acid as flakes of frost crusted on the banks and the tall peaks of grass, frozen with the dew of the oncoming chill. Very suspicious. No, not suspicious. Dangerous. His presence disappeared with the gust of freshly fallen snowflakes in the darkness, and my skin erupted into burning terror in certain spots. Where the snow fell, a blossom would grow and suck the warmth from me. I swatted at the growing blossoms and flinched away from the freshly fallen ones. Something shook violently in my stomach and I was forced by an outer magnitude to keel forward.

My stiff arms stretched to wrap themselves around my middle and I choked on the lump forcing its way up my stomach to lurch through my throat. What was happening to me? The crunching of the snow was my answer along with, "I will unfreeze your stomach if you come with me peacefully," and I wrenched open an eye to see feet in front of me.

I spat up cold slates of blood.

I clenched a fistful of snow and convulsed with the pounds of body heat I was losing. I could die like this. "Are you going to take me back?" My voice was filled with cracks and slants of tempo as the chill burned in places I could never reach.

"I am."

"Rot in hell you insufferable bastard."

The stranger has no time to respond as the obscured snowy ground under him engulfs his feet in a pool of quicksand, and I dig to find my way to the solid earth. The stranger starts to laugh as he is almost shin deep in doom. "So this is what you can do!" My fingers easily slip into the frozen ground and I fasten the process of limbs slowly disappearing. I wasn't fast enough as he froze the process and outstretched his hand and grabbed my face. He was waist height and we met eye to eye.

The feel of my stomach shattering and the acidic burn washing through my organs sucked the concentration from me like the flakes nesting on my back. I fell, face first into the snow and the bile flowed freely from my mouth with the burning sensation of my already sore uvula slowly deteriorating in the back of my throat. My fluids easily melted through the snow and left the grass a pile of brown mush, I lost everything and anything I tried so desperately hard to keep a hold. I was going to die at the hands of greed. The sounds of shattering sand told me he escaped and was now standing over my slowly dying form.

If the acid from my stomach retrieves my heart, I will die.

The last I can process properly before my eyes disappear behind my eyelids is my own painful scream as I am grabbed and drug through the snow. Dreams overtake me and I find relief to find him nowhere, but the beast shows itself to me with a solemn look; he is not smiling or trying to provoke his cage free with slippery hisses. The beast sits alone in his bars with his hands on his—my stomach. I meet a mirror of my eyes, except for the image I see has illuminative green irises and long slits that see too much of me. An idle finger traces the outline of my jaw from a close distance and I grab the hand.

"Will I live?" I ask.

I see sickly black incisors as he tries to smile, "Not like this. I have fixed us, but you will not be able to continue like this." I feared what I knew he was going to say. "You have to kill him."

"I'm not killing him." I snapped so sharply it could have been mistaken who was the actual beast.

His "smile" dropped and he grabbed my throat, "Do you want to die?"

"I need to live!" His grip tightened on the last syllable and it came out less determined than I already was.

I looked at him and he looked inside of me. It was an unfair advantage and I could not see what the others thought was so wonderful with letting these monsters take over. I have seen all sense of reality vanish in their eyes and the lust for power completely take over as they chased me like a pack of wild animals. They did not know how to stand properly; hunched backs and knuckles touching the dirt with snarls racking their animalistic shadows. They would bare their broad range of sharp teeth to threaten me into a corner, trying to force the same out of me. Those things wanted a simple taste at what I tried so hard to hide before they would devour the whole thing. It sickened me to see them so hungry.

"Dyo…" I whisper against his grasp, "Do _you_ need me to die?"

He threw his head back with laughter at the name and ran his free hand through the mediocre features of his face, and he slapped the jolly from his complexion. The point of his claws slowly sketched across his pale skin until he found his left canine and he wrapped a finger around it. I gasped when he pulled the black bone from his gums and lazily licked at the oozing midnight goo seeping from the open cavity.

"I don't need, I _want_ you dead."

I smiled despite the slash of pain in my chest. Whether it is because I was sad that even a monster inside of me hated me, or because he impaled my heart with his tooth; it still hurt. "I-I understand."

The poison from his incisor slowly thawed me from my paralyzed dreams and I awoke to see stars, and the back of my kidnapper. I wanted to move, but I was not in control any longer. Dyo took the liberty of shattering the ice cocoon and grabbing the arm that had a solid grip on the scruff of my neck, pinching the skin as he dragged me along. It was not me who flipped onto my knees and slammed my fist against the stranger's elbow; it was Dyo who broke his arm at the junction. His evil thoughts did not stop as the stranger could not even yell out in agony as he was thrown twelve feet into the ground, his body soaring through the layer of earth and only slowing when his spine shattered against a boulder.

_He's dead, _I could not speak so I had to mentally whisper to him.

"**Better safe than sorry." **I was shocked and the scream I wanted to let go was forced back into my lungs as I heard the menacing hiss Dyo spoke through me. It was not my voice, it sounded evil. The subtle growl with lower than the pits of hell tremble that shook the ground beneath me and I was expecting myself to call upon a devil.

Dyo finished the deed with holding my palms out and clapping them together, closing the opening a foot at a time from the bottom up with a spurt of blood shooting up like a volcanic explosion. I gagged when crunching was heard and he only laughed at me as he licked the droplets from my face. After chuckling like the maniac I grew to understand Dyo was, he soon returned my body to me and I fell weak in the puddles of blood.

I wanted to scream for the agony and pain I put him through, I wanted to cry for the loved ones that would miss him due to my inability to control myself, and I scratched away the smile that tugged at the corners of my chapped lips. I was alive and happy for it. But the reason for my being still living had tears welling and I let them wash away the smudges of blotchy blood, running down my chin. The poor soul's determination died with him as the blood slowly shifted into a crimson ice sculpture planting the exact spot he perished, and I bowed my head. It was perfect as an honorable death. My weeping matched my condolences for the poor soul lost and destroyed under my quivering form and I must have looked weak because Dyo piped into my head.

_You cannot rest, _he growled. _Get up, we have ways to go._

The need to move surged through my legs and I stood with new strength, strength that was not mine. For my direction, I had no clue on where the stranger was going, but I knew it was in the direction of the palace. Confirming my inquiries, I headed in the opposite direction hoping for any source of food and shelter; my clothes were a tattered mess and my stomach howled to regain everything it lost, but there was nothing around that I could utilize. Due to the sudden extreme cold, everything froze and was as barren as a gray snow storm. I gripped onto the trees for support as each step shook more than the last and I was unsure of my balance. My toes were stiff and I could feel the muscles unresponsive when I walked like my legs no longer worked. A strong gust of snowflakes brought the scent of sweet spices and I stopped to feel the jagged aura of him behind me.

"I saw what you did." He whispered close to me and I did not move, I did not breathe. My unresponsiveness was caught and a hot hand grabbed my cold shoulder. "You're shaking. Let me help you."

"No." I pushed away from the arms that wanted to capture me. "I don't need your help."

I was too weak to resist the comforting, strong arms that thawed my upper body. And that husky breathing against my burning ear felt like I was home again, lying next to the hearth with a golden fire warming up the winter evening. The way he chuckled against my neck stilled my shivering, "What someone needs is different from what they want, love."

After my legs gave in to the tempting warmth and I collapsed into the inviting embrace, I realized I had broken my own promise. It was just the way his muscles fit against my back, how his arms engulfed me against his chest; I felt like I was wanted instead of needed. Those needs being for selfish accomplishments like ruling an entire country the size of Asia as a whole, or for the simple pleasure of controlling the human trafficking community.

"Don't fret precious, I'm here. Step away from the thoughts of pain, of truth, of choice. Just like those poisoned devils, you have spoken with the lord of the underneath and have tasted the blood of an overtaken. Who was a man with the love of a thousand suns, burning so bright he felt like a puddle of his soul. Soon the other half of those feelings will return for his husband and will find his memorial you have set for him, and the hate will not blind him enough to save yourself—" A loud clap of thunder in the distance shakes me from my slumber, "—take the heed of my warnings, love. You must not count the bodies; you must not look in the eyes of the mirror.

Go back to sleep…"


End file.
